By now the nature of the anthropomorphic conception of deity evolved by the Greeks and Romans has become evident. The gods are generally depicted as human in form and in character, but although they look and act like men, very often their appearance and their actions are at least to some extent idealized. Their beauty is beyond that of ordinary mortals, their passions more grand and intense, their sentiments more praiseworthy and touching; and they can embody and impose the loftiest moral values in the universe. Yet these same gods too can mirror the physical and spiritual weaknesses of human counterparts: they may be crippled and deformed or conceived as vain, petty, and insincere; they can steal, lie, and cheat, sometimes with a finesse that is exquisitely divine. The gods usually live in houses on Mt. Olympus or in heaven; an important distinction, however, is to be made between those deities of the upper air and the upper world and those of the earth (i.e., Chthonian) and the realm below. They eat and drink, but their food is ambrosia and their wine nectar. Ichor (a substance clearer than blood) flows in their veins. Just as they can feel the gamut of human emotion, so too they can suffer physical pain and torment. They are worshiped in shrines and temples and sanctuaries; they are honored with statues, placated by sacrifices, and invoked by prayers. In general the gods are more versatile and more powerful than men. They are able to move with amazing speed and dexterity, appear and disappear in a moment, and change their shape at will, assuming various forms, human, animal, and divine. Their powers are far greater than those of mortals, but they are usually not omnipotent, except possibly Zeus himself. Yet even Zeus may be made subject to Fate or the Fates, although the conception is by no means always clear or consistent. Their knowledge, too, is superhuman, but on occasion limited. Omniscience is most often reserved as a special prerogative of Zeus and Apollo, who communicate their knowledge of the future to men. Most important of all, the gods are immortal, and this is perhaps the one most consistent divine characteristic that in the last analysis distinguishes them from mortals.

Very often one or more animals are associated with a particular deity, for example, Zeus, the eagle; Ares, the boar; Athena, the owl; Aphrodite, the dove, sparrow, or goose; and so forth. In addition any god can take the form of an animal if he so desires. But there is no concrete evidence to show that the Greeks at an early period ever worshiped animals as sacred, and it is unlikely that any one of the gods was for them ever originally an animal totem. It is, however, difficult and dangerous, if not impossible, to generalize about the nature of the Greek deities. Many of the preceding remarks apply for the most part only to the highest order of divinity in the Greek pantheon. Such wondrous and terrible creations as the Gorgons or Harpies, who populate the universe to enrich the mythology and saga, obviously represent a different category of the supernatural. Of a similar but different order, too, are the divine spirits who animate nature. These beings are usually depicted as nymphs, beautiful young girls who love to dance and sing; some of them are extremely amorous. Very often they act as attendants for one or more of the major gods or goddesses. The Muses, for example, are a kind of nymph, and so are the Nereids and Oceanids, although some of them assume virtually the stature of deity. Nymphs are more typically rather like fairies, extremely long-lived but not necessarily immortal. They are sometimes classified as follows: the spirits of water, springs, lakes, and rivers are called Naiads; Potamiads are specifically the nymphs of rivers; tree-nymphs are generally called Dryads or Hamadryads, although their name should restrict them as "spirits of oak trees" in particular; Meliae are the nymphs of the ash tree. Demigods are another class of superhuman beings, or better, a superior kind of human being-that is, supermen. They are the offspring of mixed parentage, the union of a god with a mortal, although the mortal may bask in the grand aura of the great mythological age of saga and boast of a genealogy that in the not too distant past included at least one divine ancestor. Demigods are, therefore, limited in their powers, which are rather less than those of a full-fledged god; and they are, in the last analysis, mortal, often being little more than figures made larger than life because of their tragic and epic environment. Heroes sometimes are demigods, but the terminology is not easy to define precisely. Mortals such as Oedipus and Amphiaraus are not, strictly speaking, demigods, although they are far from ordinary beings.

They may be called heroes, and certainly they become so after their death, honored with a cult largely because of the spiritual intensity of their lives and the miraculous nature of their deaths; they thus assume a divine status. Heracles, too, is a hero and a demigod who is accepted (like Oedipus?) among the company of the gods on Olympus because of his glorious attainments in this world. The difficulty in establishing absolute definitions is complicated because of the use of the designation "hero" in the vocabulary of literary criticism. Achilles is a demigod, that is, the son of a mortal Peleus and the nymph-goddess Thetis. His powers are extraordinary, but it is ultimately as a mortal, the dramatic and epic hero of the Iliad, that he lives and moves. Thus it is apparent that a hierarchy of divinities existed in the Greek pantheon. The Olympians along with the major deities of the lower world represent as it were the powerful aristocracy at the higher levels. Although the honors bestowed on individual gods and goddesses may vary to some extent from place to place (e.g., Athena belongs particularly to Athens, Hera to Argos, Hephaestus to Lemnos, Apollo to Delos and Delphi, etc.), in general the power and importance of the major divinities were universally recognized throughout the Greek world. At the top of the pinnacle is Zeus himself, the king, the father of both gods and men, the supreme lord. We have already seen the popular anthropomorphic conreption of Zeus as the father, husband, and lover; and we know too the primary sphere of his power, the sky and the upper air, with their thunder, lightning, and rain. It is important to realize as well that Zeus becomes the god who upholds the highest moral values in the order of the universe-values that he absorbs unto himself or that are divided among and shared by other deities. He is the god who protects the family, the clan, and the state, championing the universal moral and ethical responsibilities that these human associations entail. He protects suppliants, imposes ties of hospitality, upholds the sanctity of oaths; in a word he is the defender of all that is right or just in the mores of advanced civilization.

Thus a monotheistic cast in the conception of Zeus is evident from the beginning; as it evolves it may be linked closely to the standard depictions of an anthropomorphic Zeus or imagined in terms of more abstract philosophical and religious theories of a supreme power. Many selections from many authors could be quoted to bear testimony to the variety and complexity of these conceptions among the Greeks of the nature of the one god. These few examples must suffice. Hesiod, who preaches a hard message of righteousness and warns of the terror of Zeus' punishment of the wicked, sounds very much like a severe prophet of the Old Testament. The opening section of his Works and Days includes the following lines: Through Zeus who dwells in a most lofty home and thunders from on high and by his mighty will, mortals are both known and unknown, renowned and unrenowned; for easily he makes a man strong and easily he brings him low; easily he makes the overweening humble and champions the obscure; easily he makes the crooked straight and strikes down the haughty. Xenophanes, a poet and philosopher of the pre-Socratic period, was vehement in his attack on the conventional anthropomorphic depictions of the gods. Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all that is shameful and reproachful among men: stealing, adultery, and deception. [fragment 111 But mortals think that gods are born and have clothes and a voice and a body just like them. [fragment 141 The Ethiopians say that their gods are flat-nosed and black and the Thracians that theirs are fair and ruddy. [fragment 161 But if cattle and horses and lions had hands and could create with their hands and achieve works like those of men, horses would render their conceptions of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and each would depict bodies for them just like their own. [fragment 151 One god, greatest among gods and men, not at all like mortals, either in body or in mind. [fragment 231 The chorus of Aeschylus' Agamemnon (160-61) calls upon god by the name of Zeus with these words that illustrate beautifully the universality of this supreme deity: "Zeus, whoever he may be, I call on him by this name, if it is pleasing to him to be thus invoked." It is important to realize that monotheism and polytheism are not mutually exclusive, that the religious experience of mankind usually tends (as Xenophanes observes) to be anthropomorphic. It would be absurd to deny that Christianity in its very essence is monotheistic, but its monotheism too rests upon a hierarchical conception of the spiritual and physical universe, and its standard images are obviously cast in anthropomorphic molds: for example, there is one God in three divine persons, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; there are angels, saints, devils, and so on.

This does not mean that the Christian philosopher and the practicing layman view the basic tenets of their religion in exactly the same way; ultimately one's vision of deity is personal, as abstract and sublime for one as it is human and compassionate for another. Among Christian sects alone there are significant variations in dogma and ritual, and of course, there are those who do not believe at all. The range from devout belief to agnosticism and atheism was equally diverse and rich in the ancient world. The tendency in a brief survey such as this is to oversimplify and distort. The anthropomorphism of the Greeks is almost invariably linked to their role as the first great humanists. Humanism (the Greek variety or for that matter any other) can mean many things to many people. Standard interpretations usually evoke a few sublime (although hackneyed) quotations from Greek literature. The sophist Protagoras is said to have proclaimed (presumably challenging absolute values by voicing new relativistic attitudes): "Man is the measure of all things7'; a chorus in Sophocles' Antigone sings out exultantly: "Wonders are many but none is more wonderful than man"; and Achilles' judgment of the afterlife in Homer's Odyssey (translated in a later chapter) quoted out of context seems to affirm the glories of this life as opposed to the dismal gloom of the hereafter. I should prefer as a slave to serve another man, even if he had no property and little to live on, than to rule all those dead who have done with life. With words such as these ringing in one's ears, it seems easy to postulate blindly a Greek worship (even idolatry) of man in a mancentered universe, where man pays the gods the highest (but surely dubious) compliment of being cast in his own image. Whatever truths this popular view may contain, it is far too onedimensional and misleading to be genuinely meaningful and fair.   Greek literature and Greek thought are shot through with an awesome reverence for the supremacy of god, a tragic realization of the irony of man's dilemma as the plaything of fate, and a profound awareness of the pain and suffering of human existence, however glorious the triumphant heights to which mortals may attain in the face of dreadful uncertainties and terrors. The historian Herodotus perhaps best represents these human and religious attitudes in their clearest and most succinct form when he relates the story of Solon, Croesus, and Cyrus. Fortunately, episodes in their drama may be easily excerpted as an entity here, for they illustrate many things.

Monotheism and polytheism are shown resting compatibly side by side. The jealous god of Solon is not unlike the wrathful deity of the Old Testament, and this is a god who makes manifest to men that it is better to be dead than alive. The divine is able to communicate with mortals in a variety of ways; one can understand, for example, the simple and sincere belief in Apollo and Delphi possible in the sixth century B.C. Fate or destiny plays a fascinating role in the interplay between its inevitability and the individuality of human character and free will. There is much that is Homeric in the Herodotean view, not least of all a compassion tinged with a most profound sadness and pity for the human condition. Homeric and dramatic, too, is the simple elucidation of the dangers of hybris and the irrevocable vengeance of Nemesis-the kernel, as it were, of a theme that dominates Greek tragedy, with multiple and sometimes very sophisticated variations. His conception of god and his message of knowledge through suffering are strikingly Aeschylean. The story of the death of Atys is most Sophoclean in its movement and philosophy, and Croesus like Oedipus fulfills his inevitable destinies in terms of his character; each step that he takes in his blind attempts to avoid his fate brings him closer to its embrace. As Herodotus tells it, we have a complete drama conceived and beautifully executed within the structure of the short story. But let Herodotus' art speak for itself. He is neither professional theologian nor philosopher, yet he sums up the spiritual essence of an age of faith. By the second half of the fifih century, the seeds of question and doubt sown in the earlier period by men such as Thales will be brought to fruition by the skepticism and agnosticism of the Sophistic movement. The story of Solon's meeting with Croesus is found in Book 1 of Herodotus (30-46): And so Solon set out to see the world and came to the court of Amasis in Egypt and to Croesus at Sardis. And when he arrived, Croesus received him as a guest in his palace.

Three or four days later at the bidding of Croesus servants took Solon on a tour of his treasuries, pointing out that all of them were large and wealthy. When he had seen and examined them all to suit his convenience, Croesus asked the following question: "My Athenian guest, many stories about you have reached us because of your wisdom and your travels, of how you in your love of knowledge have journeyed to see many lands. And so now the desire has come over me to ask if by this time you have seen anyone who is the happiest of men." He asked this expecting that he was the happiest of men, but Solon did not flatter him at all but following the truth said: "0 king, Tellus the Athenian." And Croesus, amazed at this reply, asked sharply: "How do you judge Tellus to be the most happy?" And Solon said: "First of all he was from a city that was faring well and he had beautiful and good children and to all of them he saw children born and all survive, and secondly his life was prosperous, according to our standards, and the end of his life was most brilliant. When a battle was fought by the Athenians against their neighbors near Eleusis, he went to help and after routing the enemy died most gloriously, and the Athenians buried him at public expense there where he fell and honored him greatly." Thus Solon provoked Croesus as he listed the many good fortunes that befell Tellus, and he asked whom he had seen second to him, thinking certainly that he would at least win second place. And Solon said: "Cleobis and Biton. They were Argives by race and their strength of body was as follows: both similarly carried off prizes at the festivals and as well this story is told. The Argives celebrated a festival to Hera and it was absolutely necessary that the mother of these boys be brought by chariot to the temple.' But the oxen had not come back from the fields in time, and the youths, because it was growing late, yoked themselves to the chariot and conveyed their mother, and after a journey of five miles they arrived at the temple. When they had done this deed witnessed by the whole congregation, the end of life that befell them was the very best. And thereby god showed clearly how it is better for man to be dead than alivee.   For the Argive men crowded around and congratulated the youths for their strength and the women praised their mother for having such fine sons. And the mother was overjoyed at both the deed and the praise and standing in front of the statue prayed to the goddess to give to her sons, Cleobis and Biton, who had honored her greatly, the best thing for man to obtain. After this prayer, when they had sacrificed and feasted the two young men went into the temple itself to sleep and never more woke up but the end of death held them fast. The Argives had statues made of them and set them up in Delphi since they had been the best of men. Thus Solon assigned the second prize of happiness to these two and Croesus interrupted in anger: "My Athenian guest, is our happiness so dismissed as nothing that you do not even put us on a par with ordinary men?" And he answered: "0 Croesus, you ask me about human affairs, who know that all deity is jealous and fond of causing troubles.